It's simple but painful.

In time our leaders will learn." "After we're all killed," said Pennington sadly.
"And the country is ripped apart so that it will take half a century to put the pieces back together again and put 'em back right," said Dick, with equal sadness.
"Never mind," said Sergeant Whitley with returning cheerfulness.

"Other countries have survived great wars and so will ours." Some food was obtained for the exhausted men and they ate it nervously, paying little attention to the crackling fire of the skirmishers which was still going on in the darkness along their front.

Dick saw the pink flashes along the edges of the woods and the wheat field, but his mind, deadened for the time, took no further impressions.

Skirmishers were unpleasant people, anyway.